Acute Pancreatitis as a Complication of Intragastric Balloons: a Case Series

Intragastric balloon (IGB) placement for the treatment of obesity has been in use for more than three decades. The major advantage of IGBs is that they preserve the anatomy of the stomach and are generally considered safe; the most common complications are nausea/vomiting and abdominal pain, and very rarely are IGBs associated with mortality (0.05%). A total of 14 cases of pancreatitis complicating IGBs have been reported in the literature. In this series, we reported 10 patients who developed acute pancreatitis in association with IGBs of which half were treated conservatively without the removal of the IGBs.